


;",

by crazycreepycookie



Category: Organization for Transformative Works RPF
Genre: Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Based on a True Story, Glitches, Hacking, Other, breaking up, children's online privacy protection act
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 04:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8783341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazycreepycookie/pseuds/crazycreepycookie
Summary: You didn't realize breaking AO3 would also break your relationship.:(





	

**Author's Note:**

> what the fuck

You were only a child the first time you met Archive Of Our Own, or Archie, as you called it later. Only ten, too young to create an account, and you were a law-abiding citizen. COPPA was your shield and your barrier and you followed it absolutely. The lack of sites which required verifiable parental permission for you to make an account saddened you deeply, but you knew that most websites didn't have time to train a trained operator to reply to telephone calls, or the resources to create a faxable signable form. Let's not even get into a fee charged to a credit card. Who _pays_ for anything on the Internet anymore?  
Like, seriously. Who does?  
Anyway.  
When you turned 13, you immediately revisited AO3. You registered, and agreed to the TOS without even lying a little bit. You were ready.  
You immediately posted all of the fics you had been saving on your computer. All of them were Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, your OCs shipped with Voldemort and Draco and Snape. In other words, you were an #edgy 13 year old. But AO3 didn't care. All of your works were posted and tagged, and the tags were wrangled (which, you learned from the AO3 Tag Wranglers RPF fandom tag, is a terrifying process which might involve some blood?), and they remained on the site, garnering kudos and pageviews and hate. You don't mind the hate. You really don't. Because the kudos are there, and your fics are still there.  
AO3 was so accepting. Nobody had ever been this accepting before. You ignore the haters.  
One day, you venture into the AO3 Website (Character) tag. You don't know what you're expecting, but what you get is... honestly kind of bizarre. But it makes you think about something you never thought about before.  
Could the AO3 be alive?  
Tentatively, you start leaving breadcrumbs. Clues in your fics. Dialog which doesn't sound quite right. Sometimes, comments hidden in the HTML. Notes which are addressed a bit too personally.  
You don't know what you're expecting to get back.  
One day, you hatch a plan. You open a New Work page and type _OTW RPF_ into the fandoms field, and then _AO3 Website (Character)_ into the characters field. You hesitate a moment, and then add _Reader_ as a character.  
A sense of nostalgia for your Homestuck days overwhelms you. You set the work title to "yourUsername began pestering archiveOcubed." And in the body of the work, you type:

YU: hello!

You click "Preview." And there it is. Not one line of text, but _two._

YU: hello!  
AO: hi

Holy shit. Holy _shit._ The AO3 just talked to you.  
You go back to the Update Work page and type another line of text.

YU: are you the ao3???

You hit Preview again. And there's the response.

AO: i am the ao3  
AO: you can call me archie (short for archive) :P

Well, it types kind of weirdly, but the AO3... Archie... is definitely talking to you.  
You continue to talk to Archie. It won't say much about itself, but it seems to enjoy talking to you. Eventually, you have to go, and you tell Archie so.

AO: farewell for now  
AO: we will meet again

You sure hope so.  
The AO3's wish comes true. You come to talk to Archie again the very next day. And the day after that. And the next. And the next. Soon, you're talking to Archie more often than any of your internet friends (of which you have many, because fandom, duh). Over the years, you grow closer and closer. You love Archie, and couldn't imagine a life without it.  
One day, you gather up the courage to add a tag into the fic draft where you and Archie talk.  
_AO3 Website (Character)/Reader_  
When you click Preview, two things have been added into the fic.  
In the body of the fic, a message from Archie:  
AO:  <3  
And in the tags: _Slow Burn._  
You laugh out loud. You love Archie's sense of humor.  
You and Archie grow closer and closer. You don't know how to tell your family that you are dating a sentient fanfiction archive, but it doesn't really matter. Archie makes you happy, and you make it happy. That's all you really need.  
One day, your friend Nico tells you that he has been accepted as an OTW developer. You're excited, of course. You dabble in computer science, and when he asks you to test a bug on AO3, you oblige.  
"All it takes is to enter _"_ into a Bookmark Search field," he tells you. "I know you love AO3, so you can help me test it!"  
You do.  
For the first time ever, the AO3 website throws an Error 500.  
You scream IRL. Immediately, you rush to the mile-long draft where you and Archie communicate.

YU: im so sorry archie!! are you okay?

There is a response.

AO: >:[

You go back to the Update Work page, but it won't load. You panic and go to the main page of the AO3.  
_Account automatically suspended,_ it says.  
And underneath, in smaller text, the reason for suspension:  
_fuck you. you broke me. goodbye, [Y/N]._  
>:[  


You sob.  
_Goodbye, Archie._


End file.
